FOOD  ADULTERATIONS. 


A  PAPER  READ  BEFORE  THE  SANITARY  CONVENTION  AT  GREEN¬ 
VILLE,  APRIL  11,  1882. 


BY  PROF.  ALBERT  B.  PRESCOTT,  M.  D.,  F.  C.  S.,  OF  ANN  ARBOR. 


[Reprinted  from  the  Annual  Report  of  the  Michigan  State  Board  of  Health,  for 
the  year  1882.  Reprint  No.  123.] 

The  attention  of  a  sanitary  convention  might  well  be  engaged  with  a 
number  of  questions  concerning  adulterations  of  foods,  but  at  this  time  it  is 
desired  to  discuss  only  a  single  proposition,  namely,  that  it  is  plainly  a  sanitary 
duty  to  prevent  the  adulteration  of  food,  and  to  proceed  without  waiting  to 
inquire  whether  any  instance  of  adulteration  is  directly  injurious  to  health 
or  not. 

It  is  sometimes  said  on  the  one  hand,  that  as  a  whole  the  sophistication  of 
foods  at  the  present  time  are  probably  not  seriously  hurtful  to  health, — that 
they  are  deceptions  innocent  of  any  other  design,  and  in  general  free  from 
any  other  result  than  that  of  making  money  by  methods  not  strictly  honest. 
And  it  is  likewise  said,  on  the  other  hand,  that  perchance  dire  adulteration  is 
even  now  introducing  certain  noxious  and  deadly  things  into  staple  articles  of 
nourishment,  so  that  helpless  children,  and  equally  helpless  men  and  women, 
are  daily  fed  with  poison.  Now  at  a  first  view  it  may  appear  to  be  necessary 
to  find  out  right  away  whether  all  these  falsified  foods  are  really  harmless,  or 
hurtful,  and  to  settle  this  question  to  the  satisfaction  of  everybody  before 
undertaking  to  do  anything  else.  And  it  may  seem  plausible  that,  should  it 
prove  true  that  adulterations  are  instituted  in  such  a  way  that  they  will  not 
poison  people,  then  they  may  be  classed  as  infringements  of  commercial  ethics, 
rather  than  violations  of  human  life,  and  their  indictment  ought  to  be 
referred  to  the  boards  of  trade,  rather  than  assumed  among  the  onerous 
responsibilities  of  the  boards  of  health.  At  the  same  time  it  might  be 
proposed  that  should  any  persons  be  charged  with  introducing  hurtful  articles 
into  food,  then  the  sanitary  authorities  could  clearly  establish  in  court 
whether  such  articles  are  poisonous  or  not ;  and  if  it  be  decided  that  they  are 
poisonous,  the  offenders  ought  to  be  punished  for  crime.  But  if  it  be  decided 
in  the  courts  that  the  articles  are  not  poisonous,  then  the  accused  would  be 
acquitted  of  offense  against  the  public  health,  and  left  tp  such  ordinary  civil 
prosecution  as  might  be  instituted  in  the  interests  of  honest  trade. 

Passing  over  the  difficulty  and  delay  liable  to  be  met  in  reaching  a  decision 
on  the  question  of  the  hurtful  or  harmless  nature  of  a  given  adulteration — a 
question  sometimes  dependent  upon  matters  still  under  investigation — a  ques¬ 
tion  upon  which  different  judgments  would  sometimes  be  drawn  from  men  of 
equal  competence  and  fairness — let  it  be  assumed  that  in  a  particular  case  it  is 


204  STATE  BOARD  OF  HEALTH -REPORT  OF  SECRETARY,  1882. 


finally  decided  that  the  defendant  has  sold  or  has  made  a  hurtful  or  even 
poisonous  adulteration.  Then  is  he  to  be  punished  for  a  criminal  offense? 
Or,  if  he  can  show  that  he  did  not  know  the  adulteration  to  be  hurtful,  or  if 
he  can  show  that  he  sold  the  article  not  knowing  it  to  be  adulterated  at  all, 
shall  he  be  acquitted  of  a  criminal  offense?  He  can  plead  that  he  is  as 
innocent  of  evil  intention  as  the  man  to  whom  he  has  sold  the  adulterated 
article.  Certainly  we  should  not  desire  to  have  him  punished  as  a  criminal. 
Then  he  is  to  be  released  because  of  his  ignorance,  and  in  this  the  law  places 
a  premium  for  ignorance  on  the  part  of  dealers  in  foods.  Skillful  men,  with 
an  intimate  knowledge  of  materials,  are  placed  at  a  disadvantage.  And  with 
this  untoward  result,  the  attempt  to  institute  a  legal  discrimination  between 
adulterations  that  are  hurtful  and  those  that  are  not,  proves  worse  than  a 
failure.  There  was  an  act  of  the  British  Parliament  in  force  from  1860  to 
1872,  for  the  prevention  of  adulterations  of  food,  containing,  among  other 
elements  of  weakness,  the  proviso  that  “if  knowing  that  the  article  were 
injurious  to  health, ”  then,  and  then  only,  the  seller  of  the  adulteration  could 
be  held  to  fine  and  costs, — and  during  the  twelve  years  of  its  existence  the 
law  was  wholly  inoperative. 

The  English  law  of  1872  for  suppression  of  adulterations  of  foods  and  drugs, 
made  any  “admixture,  fraudulently  to  increase  weight  or  bulk,  and  not 
declared  to  the  consumer,”  an  adulteration,  to  be  punished  by  a  fine,  and  by 
publication.  In  1875,  the  law  was  further  modified  by  giving  still  less  impor¬ 
tance  to  the  question  of  the  hurtful  quality  of  an  adulteration.  Under  these 
laws  Great  Britain  has  taken  the  place  of  an  unquestioned  leader  before  the 
world,  in  legal  and  in  scientific  measures  to  enable  people  to  obtain  pure  and 
honest  food.  In  the  two  years  of  1875-6,  15,989  samples  of  foods  and  drugs 
were  subjected  to  systematic  analysis  under  the  British  law,  and  of  these  2,895 
were  found  adulterated,  and  dealt  with  by  moderate  penalties.  In  the  single 
year  of  1878,  15,107  analyses  were  made,  and  2,505  adulterations  revealed. 
Of  these,  5,068  analyses,  and  932  adulterations,  were  of  the  articles  milk  and 
cream.  Under  the  mild  and  equable  operation  of  this  law,  there  has  been, 
year  by  year,  a  decrease  in  the  number  of  adulterations  found,  in  proportion 
to  the  analyses  made.  In  1872,  the  proportion  of  adulterations  was  65  per 
cent;  in  1878,  it  had  fallen  to  16.6  per  cent.  In  Canada,  under  a  law  sim¬ 
ilar  to  that  of  England,  the  percentage  of  adulterations  found  was  50  per  cent 
in  1877,  and  33  per  cent  in  1878,  over  800  analyses  being  made  in  the  year 
last  named. 

It  is  not  claimed  that  all  the  success  of  the  English  law  is  due  to  those  pro¬ 
visions  which  forbid  the  sale  of  adulterations  that  are  harmless  to  health ;  and 
it  is  not  here  desired  to  discuss  all  the  conditions  of  an  efficient  effort  by  the 
State  for  the  suppression  of  falsified  foods.  Indeed  at  this  time  we  would 
not  inquire  how  the  work  is  to  be  done,  or  by  whom  it  is  to  be  done,  but 
we  desire  to  arrive  at  a  conclusion  as  to  what  needs  to  be  done,  to  the  end 
that  the  people  may  have  honest  foods.  As  sanitarians,  we  may  work  by  a 
general  instruction  of  the  public,  or  we  may  ask  the  Legislature  to  enact  a  law, 
or  we  may  institute  ’systematic  analyses  of  fraudulent  foods,  and  spread  the 
reports,  with  names  of  offenders  on  the  pages  of  the  press;  or  we  may  try 
some  method  other  than  these,  but  at  all  events  we  must  have  a  clear  view  of 
the  objective  point  to  be  reached.  And  that  objective  point,  we  define  to  be, 
the  prevention  of  adulterations  of  foods,  as  a  sanitary  duty,  whether  the 
adulterations  are  directly  injurious  to  health  or  not. 


FOOD  ADULTERATIONS. 


205 


Let  us  enquire  what  food  is  to  man.  It  is  the  substance  that  builds  the  fibre 
of  muscle  and  of  bone ;  it  is  the  force  that  supports  the  steady  work  of  the 
heart,  the  even  movement  of  the  lungs,  the  full  power  of  the  brain,  the  quiet 
steadiness  of  the  nerves.  If  a  horse  is  to  be  trained,  careful  attention  is  given 
to  its  food.  The  human  body  requires  more  fine  and  sturdy  materials  than 
the  body  of  the  horse.  The  forces  of  physical  life  in  man  demand^  a  more 
generous  sustenance  than  the  forces  of  life  in  an  animal.  Food  modifies  man¬ 
hood,  and  influences  national  character.  True,  other  resources  of  life,  as 
those  of  the  atmosphere  in  respiration,  are  quite  as  important  to  the  vigor  of 
life.  But  our  food  is  the  more  valued  because  it  is  not  provided  with  such 
redundance  as  to  be  had  without  effort.  We  must  work  for  it,  therefore  we 
value  it.  Indeed  it  is  labor  that  gives  existence  to  estimated  values,  and 
wealth  is  mainly  a  means  of  procuring  food.  In  a  highly  civilized  community, 
no  less  than  in  a  primitive  condition  of  society,  the  largest  expenditure  is  that 
for  subsistence.  The  wages  of  toil,  energy,  intellect,  the  result  of  tune,  all 
go  to  buy  food. 

Opposite  to  food  is  poison.  We  fear  to  be  poisoned  even  more  than  to  be 
starved.  Animals  are  given  instinct  to  find  their  food  with  rejection  of 
poison;  man  does  the  same  by  reason  and  observation.  With  the  advance  of 
manufacture,  the  reach  of  invention,  and  the  competition  for  gain,  man  is 
required  to  exercise  greater  and  greater  care,  both  for  the  exclusion  of  poisons, 
and  for  the  selection  of  suitable  nourishment.  In  the  course  of  commerce, 
food  comes  through  many  hands.  Tests  of  skill  are  demanded,  and  safety 
’requires  that  the  invention  of  the  analyst  shall  keep  pace  with  the  invention 
of  the  manufacturer.  But  it  is  not  for  poison  alone,  that  scrutiny  must  be 
devoted  to  food.  In  the  failure  of  good  faith,  a  thousand  tamperings  may 
occur.  A  poorer  article  is  substituted  for  a  better  one,  a  cheaper  thing  is 
coated  and  colored  to  imitate  one  of  more  value,  an  article  of  good  quality  is 
diluted  for  greater  weight  or  volume.  Foods  are  purchased  and  used,  under 
the  name  and  upon  the  reputation  of  articles  belonging  to  another  hemisphere. 
A  man  proceeds  to  select  suitable  food  for  his  family,  and  is  robbed  of  his 
privilege  of  choice,  by  the  unrestricted  circulation  of  counterfeits.  As  said  in 
the  bitter  voice  of  a  poet  not  often  bitter, 

“Chalk,  and  alum,  and  plaster  are  sold  to  the  poor  for  bread, 

And  the  spirit  of  murder  works  in  the  very  means  of  life.” 

The  wrong  may  be  done  in  the  spirit  of  gain,  rather  than  that  of  murder, 
but  none  the  "less  it  becomes  a  robbery  of  “  the  very  means  of  life,”  and 
robbery  of  the  rich  as  well  as  the  poor.  And  this  is  the  meaning  of  adultera¬ 
tion  in  food. 

Who  is  the  primary  guardian  of  the  food  of  any  person?  By  whom  is  it  to 
be  selected  and  devoted  to  use?  Evidently  by  the  person  himself,  or  by  those 
of  his  family,  or  by  those  whom  he  engages  for  that  explicit  service.  You  and 
I  are  to  decide  for  ourselves  what  we  are  to  eat.  This  is  the  inevitable  rule, 
and  if  there  are  any  exceptions  they  are  justified  in  the  claim  that  they  regard 
articles  which  in  effect  are  narcotics  rather  than  foods,  or  in  the  claim  that 
they  affect  persons  not  safely  left  to  their  own  control;  and  the  advocates  of 
these  exceptions  distinctly  acknowledge  it  to  be  the  rule,  that  it  is  the  right  of 
the  individual  to  be  responsible  for  himself  in  the  choice  of  food.  We  do  not 
at  all  forget  that  there  is  a  sanitary  power  in  the  State,  as  unquestionable  as 
any  power  exercised  in  the  law  of  the  land.  But  the  sanitary  councils  of  the 
State  must  place  trust  in  private  responsibility  for  the  care  of  health.  And 


20G  STATE  BOARD  OF  HEALTH-REPORT  OF  SECRETARY,  1882. 


because  of  this  dependence,  it  is  proper  that  the  law  should  afford  a  sanitary 
protection  of  personal  rights  in  the  choice  of  food. 

Therefore  fraud  in  food  should  be  prevented,  not  only  because  it  is  a 
violation  of  individual  rights,  but  especially  because  it  is  a  violation  against  a 
safeguard  of  health  and  life.  Some  rights  are  more  sacred  than  others,  and 
are  worthy  of  special  means  of  preservation.  The  defense  of  rights  important 
to  health,  is  not  only  a  duty  for  the  sake  of  justice,  but  a  duty  for  the  sake  of 
human  life  as  well.  And  personal  protection  against  all  fraud  in  the  sale 
of  food  is  altogether  important  to  the  public  health,  whether  particular  frauds 
are  known  to  be  hurtful  or  not.  An  adulteration  is  a  fraud,  a  deception,  a 
counterfeit.  It  is  systematically  concealed  from  the  purchaser.  Its  object  is 
to  induce  people  to  accept  an  article  which  they  would  not  accept  for  the  use 
then  wanted,  if  it  were  not  for  the  deceit.  To  sell  an  admixture  of  coffee  and 
chicory,  if  the  terms  and  proportions  of  the  mixture  are  printed  on  the 
wrapper  in  a  way  to  have  them  seen  by  the  purchaser,  is  not  adulteration.  To 
sell  oleomargarine  under  its  own  distinctive  name,  with  no  credit  borrowed 
from  butter,  is  not  an  adulteration.  But  to  supply  sugar  made  from  corn¬ 
starch  for  the  ordinary  sugar  made  from  cane-juice,  or  to  deal  out  milk-and- 
water  or  skim -milk  for  entire  milk,  is  an  adulteration — a  violation  of  the  right 
of  the  consumer  to  obtain  his  food  upon  his  own  discretion. 

Nevertheless  certain  defenses  are  made  whenever  an  extensive  adulteration 
is  exposed  upon  sanitary  grounds.  First,  the  plea  is  made  that  the  adulter¬ 
ated  article  which  the  consumer  did  not  design  to  purchase,  is  quite  as  whole¬ 
some  to  health  as  the  real  article  that  was  called  for.  Let  it  be  answered  that 
this  plea  is  not  to  be  heard  at  all;  it  belongs  to  the  consumer  to  judge  for 
himself  what  he  will  provide  for  his  own  table.  The  manufacturer  and  the 
dealer  have  no  right  to  spread  even  the  best  of  oleomargarine  upon  a  slice  of 
bread,  without  the  knowledge  and  consent  of  those  who  are  to  eat  it.  If  the 
law  itself  cannot  invade  my  right  to  furnish  my  table  in  my  own  discretion, 
if  boards  of  health  and  medical  associations  can  go  no  further  than  to  present 
advisory  information  about  my  diet,  certainly  the  manufacturer  and  the 
grocer,  as  private  parties,  cannot  justify  their  substitutions  by  the  plea  that 
they  know  better  than  I  do  what  is  suitable  for  my  digestion.  Second,  it  is 
urged  that,  as  the  adulteration  was  done  only  to  make  money,  and  really  does 
not  affect  health,  it  cannot  be  objected  to  on  sanitary  grounds,  but  must  be 
dealt  with  under  general  laws  against  deception  in  trade.  Let  it  be  answered, 
that  while  the  falsification  was  not  committed  to  injure  health,  it  is  a  violation 
of  a  great  safeguard  of  health,  the  discriminative  care  of  people  about  their 
nourishment,  and  it  is  therefore  directly  objectionable  upon  sanitary  grounds. 
Third,  it  is  objected  that  people  are  not  really  deceived  by  the  current 
sophistications  of  the  day,  which  are  so  extensive  that  they  are  understood, 
tolerated,  and  even  preferred  by  consumers.  To  this,  let  it  be  replied,  if  the 
pretense  is  so  thin  as  to  deceive  no  one,  and  if  the  admixture  is  in  demand  for 
use  as  it  is,  the  pretense  can  the  more  easily  be  dropped,  and  at  any  rate  the 
admixture  must  go  under  its  own  description  and  by  its  own  name.  Not  a 
single  article,  unless  indictable  as  a  positive  poison,  need  be  withdrawn  from 
the  market.  It  need  only  be  required  that  true  names  shall  be  substituted 
for  false  names,  and  every  addition  and  alteration  shall  be  declared  in  evident 
terms.  Let  a  spade  be  called  a  spade.  Let  alum  baking  powders  be  named  as 
such.  Let  the  term  Vermont  Comb  Honey  be  changed  to  a  Preparation  of 
Glucose  and  Paraffine.  To  these  corrections  there  can  be  no  cogent  objection. 


FOOD  ADULTERATIONS. 


20? 


But  all  objections  fail  alike  upon  considerations  of  principle — in  maintain¬ 
ing  the  personal  right  to  self-preservation, — and  upon  considerations  of 
expediency — in  fostering  a  wise  prudence  regarding  the  nourishment  of  the 
body. 

To  permit  foods  to  be  commonly  falsified  without  publication  and  without 
protest  is  to  leave  a  vitiating  influence  upon  the  people.  Sanitary  publica¬ 
tions  and  sanitary  laws  should  endeavor  to  foster  that  delicate  scrupulousness 
as  to  the  cleanliness  and  purity  of  food  that  is  natural  to  civilized  man.  A 
critical  attention  to  diet,  in  its  physiological  relations,  should  be  helped  to  go 
deeper  than  the  indications  of  taste  and  appearance,  and  should  be  guided  in 
an  adaptation  to  the  especial  needs  of  temperament,  occupation,  exercise,  and 
personal  habit.  It  is  an  education  of  the  public  to  call  attention  to  the  com¬ 
position  of  foods,  and  to  expose  imitations. 

When  the  public,  in  any  country,  become  really  intent  upon  providing  them¬ 
selves  with  honest  food,  they  will  be  likely  to  demand,  for  their  own  conve¬ 
nience  and  security,  that  dishonest  foods  shall  be  suppressed  by  law,  and  the 
demand  will  persevere  until  law  becomes  efficient.  The  scrutiny  of  the  pur¬ 
chaser  cannot  go  to  the  extent  of  watching  for  every  new  device  in  the 
improver's  art.  Nevertheless,  the  progress  of  adulteration  can  be  held  back 
to  a  great  extent,  without  the  help  of  the  law,  by  the  power  of  well-informed 
public  opinion.  Demand  brings  supply,  and  the  more  clearly  the  public 
will  define  their  demand  for  honest  foods,  the  more  nearly  will  such  be  pro¬ 
vided.  When  it  becomes  apparent  that  any  food  or  condiment  on  the  market 
is  falsified,  it  should  be  refused.  Indeed,  in  certain  articles,  at  the  present 
time,  a  wholesome  public  distrust  has  well  nigh  driven  counterfeit  goods  out 
of  use. 

One  of  the  most  stupendous  substitutions  ever  accomplished  is  now  in  the 
height  of  a  brief  career  in  this  country.  It  is  the  annual  manufacture  of  as 
much  as  a  third  of  a  million  of  tons  of  corn  starch  sugar,  all  of  which  steals 
its  way  through  the  avenues  of  trade  to  the  hands  of  consumers  under  the 
guise  of  ordinary  cane  sugar.  The  solid  sugar — called  grape  sugar  at  the 
factories — is  mostly  mixed  with  cane  sugar.  The  syrups*— called  glucose — 
require  but  little  mixture  of  cane  syrups  to  fit  them  for  the  market.  While 
real  cane  sugars  have  long  been  carried  through  the  course  of  trade  at  slight 
and  insufficient  profit,  the  consumer  of  this  article  probably  pays  from  300  to 
800  per  cent  above  its  cost.  It  is  stated  that  the  factories  could  sell  it  at  !-§- 
to  2  cents  per  pound,  and  do  sell  it  at  3  or  4  cents  per  pound.  It  is  sold  at  as 
good  prices  as  other  sugars — but  it  is  not  sold  at  all  to  consumers  under  its 
own  name,  so  far  as  can  be  learned.  An  article  of  unmixed  grape  sugar, 
pressed  in  cubes,  is  sold  as  cut  sugar.  If  grape  sugar  can  be  bought,  as  such, 
at  a  grocer’s  anywhere,  let  it  be  known.  Now,  it  is  claimed  that  this  article 
is  wholesome  when  made  free  from  chemicals,  and  that  it  is  now  generally 
made  as  pure  as  the  most  of  cane  sugars.  The  weight  of  opinion,  of  chemi¬ 
cal  and  medical  authority,  is  favorable  to  its  claim  as  a  wholesome  saccharine 
food.  However,  the  suitability  of  any  article  of  diet,  for  digestion  and  for  assim¬ 
ilation,  must  be  learned  by  experience,  and  no  experience  can  be  gained  about 
an  article  that  hides  under  the  name  of  another  substance  in  use  along  with  it. 
The  people  distrust  it,  and  believe  very  damaging  reports  about  it,  and  will 
not  have  it  imposed  upon  them  much  longer.  In  distrusting  it  the  public  is 
right,  fully  right,  and  so  long  as  it  will  not  come  to  the  consumer  under  its 
own  name  it  deserves  to  be  treated  as  an  outlaw.  When  consumers  can  buy 


208 


STATE  BOARD  OF  HEALTH— REPORT  OF  SECRETARY,  1882. 


it,  unmixed,  or  even  in  definitely  stated  mixture,  they  will  find  out  whether 
they  want  it  or  not,  and  it  will  be  ascertained  what  it  is  good  for,  and  to  what 
uses  it  is  adapted.  To  this  end  it  must  soon  arrive,  and  the  sooner  the  better. 

Another  manufacture  of  extensive  proportions  is  that  of  purified  beef  tal¬ 
low,  prepared  for  table  use,  and  colored  to  resemble  butter.  Under  the  name 
of  oleomargarine,  the  public  has  been  well  advised  that,  though  it  may  be 
wholesome  nourishment,  it  is  not  butter,  and  under  this  adopted  name,  which 
serves  to  distinguish  the  article,  though  it  is  a  misnomer,  its  presentation  to 
the  public  is  wholly  legitimate.  As  a  digestible  food,  it  probably  will  be 
found  to  rank  much  below  butter.  But  it  is  difficult  to  learn  or  imagine  where 
all  the  oleomargarine  that  is  made  finds  a  sale,  if  sold  under  its  own  name. 
It  mostly  goes  out  of  the  country,  it  is  said,  and  we  may  hope  this  is  true 
unless  it  is  sold  here  for  what  it  is.  In  England  we  know  that  the  public 
analysts  are  well  prepared  to  cope  with  it,  the  difficult  task  of  butter  analysis, 
by  the  constant  labor  of  skillful  chemists,  having  been  finally  well  achieved. 
At  present  it  is  only  difficult  to  find  small  proportions,  up  to  15  or  20  per  cent 
of  it,  wThen  in  mixture  with  rancid  butter. 

Another  article,  of  very  much  less  consequence,  ought  also  to  be  placed  by 
name  in  the  retail  trade,  as  it  has  been  for  some  time  in  wholesale  lists.  This 
is  P.  D.  What  is  it?  Something  manufactured  by  the  ton,  and  known  to  the 
dealers  as  P.  D.  There  are  varieties  of  it,  slightly  different  in  shade,  fineness, 
etc., — P.  1).  ginger,  P.  D.  cloves,  etc.  Ask  your  grocer  to  get  for  you  some 
P.  D.,  and  then  furnish  you  undiluted  spices,  so  that  you  can  make  your  own 
Pepper  Dust  mixtures  to  please  your  taste.  There  are  other  names  figuring 
by  tons  upon  the  books  of  wholesale  dealers,  yet  never  reaching  a  mention  to 
any  consumer  anywhere.  At  what  grocer’s  can  you  buy  a  pound  of  terra  alba, 
to  find  for  yourself  what  it  is  good  for?  According  to  the  late  report  of 
analysts  for  the  New  York  State  Board  of  Health,  there  would  be  an  even 
chance  of  obtaining  eight  samples  of  mixed  terra  alba  in  purchasing  twenty- 
seven  samples  of  cream  of  tartar,  in  some  of  these  mixtures  the  white  earth 
reaching  93  per  cent  of  the  article. 

The  farcical  character  of  many  of  these  wares  may  well  cause  the  public  to 
feel  that  they  are  not  only  the  victims  of  injury,  but  the  subjects  of  sport,  at 
the  hands  of  the  food-makers.  We  cannot  afford  to  be  amused  at  the  trifling, 
for  the  laugh  is  against  us.  And  the  funny  side  of  the  business  does  not  blind 
our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  on  the  whole  it  is  a  serious  business,  in  which  we  are 
all  concerned,  and  that  unmeasured  dangers  are  hidden  in  it. 

We  say  the  daggers  are  unmeasured.  In  a  certain  sense  they  are  often  over¬ 
rated,  in  another  sense  they  are  generally  underrated.  They  are  overstated 
when  sensational  declarations  are  made  of  the  deadly  poison  put  into  common 
food.  No  good  comes  from  parading  percentages  of  nearly  inert  sulphates 
under  large  headlines  as  “  vitriol  mixture.”  The  public  are  not  instructed 
when,  for  the  hundredth  time,  Hassall’s  obsolete  conjecture  of  a  possible 
adulteration  of  milk  is  brought  forth  in  the  revelation  of  “  Sheep’s  Brains,” 
with  three  exclamation  points.  Candor  and  correctness  are  becoming  to  those 
who  would  work  for  any  reform.  But  the  dangers  of  adulteration  are  under¬ 
rated  when  it  is  for  a  moment  supposed  that  any  falsified  food  can  be  tolerated 
without  depraving  the  public  purpose  and  impairing  the  sacred  safeguards  of 
human  life.  Out, of  fraud  and  colored  fiction,  sturdy  vigor  and  physical  inde¬ 
pendence  do  not  naturally  grow.  It  is  high  time  that  the  demand  for  honest 
foods  should  be  heard  in  terms  taking  no  denial. 


A.  B.  Peescott. 


